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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26595019">Nicky and Quynh (but mostly Nicky) destroy math</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wicked08/pseuds/Wicked08'>Wicked08</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Old Guard (Movie 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Historical, Humor, Mathematics, himbo Nicky, technically cannon complicent</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:59:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,082</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26595019</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wicked08/pseuds/Wicked08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It's 1125 and Yusuf learns that being bad at math can sometimes be an advantage (if you are convincing enough).</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>165</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Nicky and Quynh (but mostly Nicky) destroy math</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My very first, non analytical fanfic- enjoy</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>1125</p>
<p>“Thank God for coffee,” Yusuf thought, taking a much needed sip from the liquid pouch.</p>
<p>It was early morning at camp, near the end of Yusuf and Nicolo’s first successful mission with the three ancient immortals: Lykon, Andromache, and Quynh. Granted it was hard to fail a mission that involved traveling long distances to trade large amounts of merchandise in exchange for silver, simply to get a cut from the Baron who hired them (Andromache wanted to dive straight into battle with all 5, but Lykon wanted “the new guys” to start slow and Quynh wanted some easy money so Andromache was overruled.).</p>
<p> With Andromache going to discuss payment plans with the man who hired them, Lord Ashol (a man who earned the pronunciation of his name by privately inquiring about Yusuf’s “strange, exotic homeland”)  and Lykon sound asleep after the night shift, this left him, Quynh, and Nicky (Quyhn’s nickname for him had caught on with the rest of the group) to wait awake with the remaining provisions and the silver that would be used for said payment. </p>
<p>“So Yusuf, you were a merchant,-” Quynh starts asking in between bites of breakfast, gazing at their treasure with borderline lust, “how much do you think we’ll get to keep?” </p>
<p>It was a question both of greed and practicality, after all more money now meant more time in between jobs (no one wants to be stabbed every day for eternity, even if they chose to be an immortal mercenary). </p>
<p>Yusuf figured that the correct answer would likely be the simplest, “Well, given finders fees, traveling fees, and basic negotiation we’ll most likely get a 25% cut.” He takes another sip of his coffee, “Now I just need to figure out what to do with my 5%.”</p>
<p>Nicky, his’s former travel companion, current boyfriend (“I’ll never tire of that word”, Yusuf thinks) turns towards him and protests, “Yusuf don’t sell yourself short, you deserve to have 14%-“</p>
<p>“And he thinks I’m the romantic,” Yusuf thinks, and is about to tease him when-</p>
<p>“just like the rest of us,” Nicky finishes, with the confidence of a man who doesn’t know he’s extremely wrong.</p>
<p>“Wait… what?”</p>
<p>“Yes, 25 divided up by 5 is 14, did you not know that?” Confusion is written all over his face/</p>
<p>Now, Nicky is scarily good with money, to the point where he can make a week’s wages last almost a month, so it takes a second for Yusuf to realize “oh… oh no… he’s serious.” He wants to ask some questions about Nicky’s former monk-led-education, but instead says,</p>
<p>“Why don’t I show you how I did my math, to see how everything adds up?” It was early after all, maybe this was just a brain freeze. </p>
<p>Quynh is now watching this interaction with great interest, as Yusuf grabs a stick to start writing equations in the dirt, and starts the “math lesson”.</p>
<p>“Ok,-“ Yusuf begins, “25 divided by 5, 5 won’t go into 2, right-“ Nicky nods at this, “but it will go into 25, 5 times.”</p>
<p>“Oh, ok” Yusuf breathes a sigh of relief “I see where you went wrong.” What?</p>
<p>“You are right, it won’t go into 2, but it goes into 5 one time, that leaves 20 which 5 will go into 4 times, therefore the answer is 14.”</p>
<p>Yusuf, staring at the bastardized math equation in the dirt, his soul written on his face, can only say, “I can’t believe this.”</p>
<p>Looking up, Yusuf sees Quynh walks over to them and says, “Don’t worry, I’ll handle this.” Thank you Quynh. “The correct answer is, in fact, 14.” Fuck you Quynh. </p>
<p>“I will use multiplication to prove it.” Quynh scrapes the previously used patch of dirt under her shoes, to eliminate the numbers already written and starts writing a math problem. </p>
<p>“When multiplying 14 by 5, you start have to break it down into 3 steps. First, 4 times 5 is 20, then 1 times 5 is 5, when you add the two together you get 25.” When finished, Quynh folds her arms in a moment of triumph, causing Yusuf to groan in an agony greater than he felt during his and Nicky’s meet-not-cute.</p>
<p>Speaking of Nicky, he pulled Yusuf in for a side hug and starts stroking his hair and neck in a comforting manner saying, “It’s ok hayati, we all make mistakes.” Nicky places a kiss on his cheek for emphasis/</p>
<p>At least with Quynh, Yusuf could reason that she’s blindly hoping for everyone to get a greater cut, but Nicky is so achingly sincere in his belief that for a second Yusuf considers letting this delusion continue. But Yusuf had grown to love Nicky, and when you love someone, you don’t let them lack basic math knowledge for eternity.</p>
<p>“Just to make things clear,” Yusuf says, with a surprising amount of calm, “I would like to use addition to add five 14’s.” </p>
<p>Addition, simple, sweet, addition.</p>
<p>“Here we go, 4, 8, 12, 20, Nicky you handle the rest.” There were 5, 10’s making for an extra 50.</p>
<p>“Ok, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25.” Nicky looks back at Yusuf, face comfortably sitting in the palm of his hand,  “I’m sorry dear, I just don’t want you to cheat yourself.”</p>
<p>Before Yusuf can say anything else, Andromache comes back, and, surprisingly, has Baron Ashol with her. She says in her trademark coolness, “We were able to come to an agreement, we get a cut of 25%.” Ashol, despite no one asking, cuts in saying, “No doubt an excellent deal as you all were able to gather 1000 pieces of silver, unless-” he not-so-subtly turns to Yusuf “-someone decided to take a little extra.”</p>
<p>Andromache gives Yusuf a look that says “Say the word, and I’ll kill him and we can take all the money” and Yusuf returns a look, hopefully, saying, “let me try a diplomatic method.”</p>
<p>Out loud, he says, “great, since we each get 14%, we’ll each grab 140 pieces of silver.”</p>
<p>The Baron blanches, “excuse me-“</p>
<p>Before he can finish Yusuf says, “25 divided by 5 is 14. Nicky, Quynh, show him your math.”</p>
<p>As the two got to work with their, totally, completely, accurate math lesson, Andromache sits down and asks, </p>
<p>“Do I really want to know?”</p>
<p>“It’s better if you just watch.”</p>
<p>“I regret not having popcorn.”</p>
<p>A couple of hours later Lykon awakens to the pleasant surprise that the old guard managed to score a cut of 14% each.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I was inspired to write this fic after watching this youtube video.</p>
<p>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfq5kju627c</p></blockquote></div></div>
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